Framing American Indians as the “First Americans”: Using Critical Multiculturalism to Trouble the Normative American Story

The author addresses ways in which secondary American history textbooks reflect and perpetuate the normative American story and identity by framing American Indians as the “first Americans,” while at the same time silencing indigenous voices in the telling of their own stories. This paper contributes to existing literature by providing an updated and critical analysis of a particular dimension of social studies texts and provides concrete examples and critical discussion of the master narrative at work in curricula. Suggestions are made for applying critical multiculturalism to the portrayal of the origins of humans in North America, using examples of indigenous texts currently used in classrooms that offer a truly multicultural resource for teachers.